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FCC Excludes Utilities & CII from ERIC Public Safety Advisory CouncilFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: FCC Excludes Utilities & CII from ERIC Public Safety Advisory Council Washington, D.C. –Electricity, gas and water providers will not be part of the efforts guiding the design and build-out of a public safety emergency response network in the 700 MHz band, despite the important role they play during emergency response and restoring essential services after man-made or natural disasters. At the first meeting of the 60-member Emergency Response Interoperability Center's Public Safety Advisory Council (ERIC PSAC) appointed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), not a single utility or critical infrastructure industry (CII) will be represented. In contrast, fully one-quarter of the seats went to non-public safety interests, including commercial service and equipment providers and their associations whose only connection is their commercial interest in the networks themselves. ERIC’s first meeting is tomorrow, March 15th. When the FCC issued its National Broadband Plan almost a year ago, it recommended that utilities and public safety should jointly build, operate and maintain 700 MHz broadband networks. It invited nominations for membership to the ERIC PSAC, and the Utilities Telecom Council (UTC) nominated a representative from the utility industry, who is also a reserve police lieutenant in New Jersey. UTC President and CEO William R. Moroney stated that, "utilities are in the process of building and upgrading their communications networks to improve energy and water reliability – and plan on spending billions of dollars to accomplish this goal. Wouldn't it make sense to leverage that infrastructure and those dollars to build a more reliable and ubiquitous network for public safety as well, especially when we have the same communications needs and work together at the same emergencies? At the same time, a partnership between utilities and public safety will accelerate the deployment of these networks and promote interoperability between utilities and public safety during emergency response. It's a trifecta – more efficient restoration of power and water to more quickly facilitate societal and economic normalcy, better coordination with public safety, and lower costs to taxpayers by leveraging existing and planned utility infrastructure, especially in the more rural parts of the country that have yet to see reliable cell service." Utilities Telecom Council |
